Rares sont les voix qui s’élèvent contre l’enseignement de la défense dans son approche globale mais force est de constater que les élèves devenus adultes ne se souviennent pratiquement pas de cet enseignement. Les raisons de cet échec sont multiples : le flou du concept de défense globale et de sécurité devenue nationale, un enseignement intégré principalement dans les programmes d’éducation civique, un pilotage de l’éducation à la défense par deux administrations concurrentes, la réduction du format des armées depuis plusieurs décennies … Alors que les risques et les menaces se complexifient, que la jeunesse est en recherche de repères, il apparaît plus que jamais indispensable que cet enseignement imprègne la société dès l’enfance ou la pré adolescence. Un collège et une académie ont constitué un laboratoire pédagogique pour expérimenter et mettre au point un dispositif de classe à projet dont le fil directeur est la défense globale. Après quelques années et dans le cadre d'une expérimentation devenue nationale, il apparaît rapidement comme un moyen de motiver les élèves, de travailler des compétences du socle et de leur ouvrir l’école sur les enjeux du monde actuel. / Few voices criticize the teaching of global defence. Nevertheless, it seems that the former pupils, once adults, forget a great deal about these courses. The reasons for this failure are multiple: first, there is the abstract concept of global defence andnational security, which must be added to the fact it is mainly integrated into civics education. Moreover, the management of this teaching depends on two different and rival administrations. Eventually, one should also take into account the lastingdecrease in the army numbers over the past decades. While the risks and threats tend to complicate, alongside with the growing demand of youth for points of reference, the need for such teaching from childhood or preadolescence appears to be vital. a Few years ago, a junior high school and an academy created an educational laboratory to experiment and innovate through a new class system which focused on a global defence project. Several years later, and within a newly national experiment framework, these classes have undoubtedly proved to be a means to motivate the pupils, to develop a common set of core skills, and to open their school on the challenges of today's world.

The focus of this investigation is civics in the Swedish upper secondary school. In addition to subject matter, civics is also an agent for democratic socialisation. The study explores and analyses the reflections of six teachers on their teaching about globalisation. These reflections, or voices, are researched through interviews and classroom observations. The starting point is the teachers’ description of content and goals in their teaching. The overall aim is to identify and analyse first and second order concepts in their teaching and analyse the relationship between the concepts and democratic socialisation. Despite the strong position of civics as one of the main subjects in school curricula very little research has been done. By focusing on one substantial case, globalisation, this study tries to reach beyond the various topics covered in civics. In order to understand civics teaching the researcher use the history didactic terms of first and second order concepts to find a new way to explore and understand civics. Manifested in the teachers’ voices are ideas on how to organise, analyse, interpret and critically review discourses in society. The second order concepts of civics found in the teachers’ voices are social science perspectives, social science causality, social science inference, social science evidence and social science abstraction. In order to reach their goals in civics the teachers underline the importance of using second order concepts. When pupils work more scientifically they develop a way of thinking about society and they have to challenge their set opinions about different topics. Therefore, the second order concepts are important for achieving civic literacy.

Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / Recent political changes in South Africa emphasize democracy and the role of schools in promoting democratic virtues. The importance of schools responsibility in developing democratic virtues is also internationally recognized, although different authors / South Africa

Denna forskningsöversikt syftade till att undersöka vad som kan utgöra kognitiva hinder i lärandeprocessen under samhällskunskapsundervisning, med målet att finna implikationer för undervisning och examinationsformer som kan nå och engagera fler elever. Arbetet utgick ifrån ett teoretiskt ramverk för universellt utformade lärandesituationer, för att bidra till proaktiv och preventiv planering utifrån elevers funktionsvariation. Målet var att om möjligt reducera behovet av speciallösningar i efterhand, samt stödja samhällskunskapslärare i att möta eleverna såväl kollektivt som individuellt. Översikten inkluderar 48 peer-review-granskade artiklar publicerade i utvalda vetenskapliga tidskrifter, vilka bygger på antingen metaanalyser eller primärforskning som har utförts i skolmiljö med elever i årskurs 4 upp till och med gymnasiet. Särskild uppmärksamhet riktas mot de kognitiva krav som ställs när elever i takt med ökad ålder självständigt förväntas kunna bearbeta och skapa mening av samhällskunskapligt innehåll. Utifrån en kombinatorisk analys rekommenderar jag sammantaget mer explicit undervisning – i synnerhet litteracitetsutvecklande sådan sett till betydelsen av läs- och skrivförmåga för att lyckas inom samhällskunskapsämnet – samt mer kognitiv vägledning och modellering från samhällskunskapsläraren, dels för att utveckla elevens samhälleliga och akademiska litteracitet, dels för att på sikt möjliggöra självständig tillämpning av samhällskunskapliga tankeredskap. Vidare rekommenderas mer kognitiv validering av examinationer, för att synliggöra vilka kognitiva krav som bör ställas, vilka som faktiskt ställs och huruvida eleven använder sig av de förväntade kognitiva processerna. I ämnesdidaktisk forskning som hittills har genomförts i skandinavisk kontext framstår elevernas funktionsvariation som anmärkningsvärt osynliggjord, sett till den centrala roll som eleven spelar i många didaktiska modeller. När samhällkunskapsdidaktiken fokuserar på relationen mellan elev och innehåll är det utifrån en relativt homogen syn på gruppen nybörjare. Specialpedagogisk och språkvetenskaplig forskning däremot uppmärksammar i högre utsträckning “startsträckan” som elever har innan de når ämnesinnehållet och kan börja öva på ämnesspecifika förmågor.

PhD (Public Administration) / Department of Public and Development Administration / The study reviews and assess the impact of ethical leadership in promotion of good governance in the Limpopo Province in South Africa. Since the inception of the province in 1994, the provincial government witnessed an alarming statistics of unethical behaviour within its echelons. The media reports is frequently dominated by negative news of ethical transgression within the province’s public institutions. The reports on fraud and corruption scandals ranges from conflict of interests which manifest itself through payment of ghost workers, tardiness, weak institutions, lack of accountability and honesty by senior and subordinate public officials. In 2011, some of the provincial government’s departments were placed under “Administration”, meaning the control of province by the National Treasury. The placement of the departments under administration confirms the public perception that the province is engulfed by ethical challenges which result to poor governance of the province. The findings from the study confirm that although the province attempted to put strategies to minimise acts of unethical behaviour in the province, there is still a concern of ethical transgression that is ongoing and unabated. The study adopted the mixed methodology research design for data collection. The senior public managers and subordinate public officials were sampled as the population for the study. The aim is to assess the pivotal role that senior public managers as leaders play in fostering the organisational performance, hence good governance through modelling behaviour. The findings of the study assist to respond to the concern of why transgressions of ethical conduct occurs despite progressive legislative frameworks were introduced to promote good governance. The study recommended an Integrative Model of Ethical Leadership, which takes into account / NRF

MCom (Human Resource Management) / Department of Human Resources Management and Labour Relations / The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between ethical leader behaviour and the five factors of personality in Vhembe District, South Africa. This research used a quantitative method. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a stratified random sample of n=202 participants. All categories from selected government departments of the Vhembe District were included in the strata meaning that junior and senior employees both participated. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25 was used for descriptive and inferential statistics (Correlation and ANOVA) to determine relationships between ethical leadership and personality factors of agreeableness, consciousness, neuroticism, extroversion and openness to experience. The Personality Factor Scale was used to collect data on the five factors of personality, and the ethical Leaders Scale was used to collect data on the dependent variable of ethical leader behaviour. The findings of this study confirmed that out of the five factors of personality, consciousness had the most a positive significant relationship with ethical leader behaviour. Therefore, this study concludes that selected government departments of the Vhembe District should exhibit ethical leadership to their employees. The study also discovers that fairness, role clarifications and power sharing were the aspect of ethical leadership which is required in every leader to become ethical. / NRF

This essay, conducted through semi-structured interviews with five upper secondary school students, aim to analyze and understand if and how their perceived motivation to social studies changed due to distance teaching during the covid-19 pandemic as well if and how their motivation has changed since returning to school post-pandemic. The theory of self-determination works as the cornerstone which is complemented by two relational theories in relational pedagogy as well as the zone of proximal development in addition to the concept of self-regulation. The result shows that the students’ perceived motivation was affected negatively by studying and attending lectures away from the ordinary school environment, caused by a loss of interest for the subject which in turn is a result of less varied teaching as well as a loss of peer-pressure which works as a motivational factor for many of the students. However, the study also shows that their perceived motivation increased once returned during their final year of school, which in turn is a result of an increased interest in the subject caused by relational aspects such as being able to engage verbally during lectures as well as to a larger degree being able to use the teacher as well as each other as a resource to enhance their learning. These are aspects which were hindered by distance learning, which also stresses the importance of relations for enhanced learning.

Previous research has concluded that many civics teachers lack sufficient knowledge of the European Union which affect students’ ability to acquire sufficient knowledge that in the long-term will have democratic consequences in terms of low turnout and lack of enlightened understanding. The purpose of this essay is therefore to examine civic teachers’ level of knowledge through semi structured conversion analysis to gain understanding of teachers own views of their teachings in terms of EU. The interviews show that civic teachers interpret the curriculum different from each other which have consequences for their teachings in the shape of extent as well as content. Furthermore, this essay shows that teachers themselves experience that their knowledge of EU is sufficient to educate students. However, the analysis shows that their knowledge of how to teach about EU in some cases assumes a foreign policy perspective which previous research have stated is harmful to students’ perception of EU as students perceive it as something far away, rather than something close to them. Finally, this essay concludes that many teachers experience a time pressure which further complicate their ability to implement a satisfactory EU teaching. This, as well as a lack of understanding of the extent and which content to process, show that teachers experience it as difficult to teach about EU as is expected from them.

The aim of this study is to analyze whiteness in textbooks for civics. The study is executed through a text analysis of two textbooks in civics for upper primary school in Sweden. In this approach a postcolonial theoretical framework is used which is thoroughly presented, after which resulted in two analytical models. One model was used to identify binary dichotomies, while the other consisted of five questions that aimed to highlight patterns regarding whiteness in the textbooks. One of the most important contributions of the postcolonial theory was the visualization of the links between historical colonialism and contemporary societal problems such as various forms of racism and discrimination. On these grounds, the theory was chosen. The result showed a partly problematic presentation in the textbooks.

This thesis discusses source criticism from a critical perspective which encompasses its challenges, demands and possibilities for teaching practice. The questions guiding the core of this research are the following:1) What differentiates people’s activities in the process of evaluating sources? 2) What characterizes an effective practice in critical evaluation of sources? 3) Which criteria, factors and strategies might be important to consider in order to have a successful source critical methodology that promotes the improvement of critical thinking when analysing information and news?The studied materials include data from one survey and 54 semi-structured interviews. The interviews, analysed by using a methodology based on Grounded Theory, led to the development of a concept, critical source criticism (CSC), which define a broad perspective for the analysis of sources, and a related theoretical model (the CSC-model) aimed to be used for didactical purposes. The outcomes from this research suggest that different forms and levels of knowledge in history and social studies (in theory and practice), have a critical impact on the way we interact with information. The results also suggest that the combinations of theories and methodologies, alongside an emphasis on pluralism and multiperspectivity, can turn source criticism into an effective practice to achieve several educational goals. Subsequently, these results, are considered in the development of the proposed model in this thesis. The CSC-model developed in this study could be suitable for the analysis of information such as news, in planning of source-critical based teaching and in source critical discussions. I argue that this methodological structure, can be applied to facilitate the development of critical thinking, as well as other skills and abilities essential for democratic participation. This thesis Includes summaries in Swedish and Spanish as appendices".